2 



[July, 1910. 



circle, what they grew. For about a 

 century this steady growth of a non- 

 capitalist community went on, until all 

 the best soils and most favourable 

 climates of the nearer West were occu- 

 pied by prosperous, but not rich, farming 

 folk. Always the surplus members of 

 the family moved on, and took up more 

 land for themselves further west, until 

 there remained, as is now the case in 

 the United States, and will before long 

 be the case in Canada also, practically 

 no land that could be taken up without 

 purchase. The remaining un-pre-empted 

 lands in the States are those with very 

 poor conditions of soil, climate, or other 

 feature, which will not be taken up till 

 people are forced to it. 



That the Western farmer is not averse 

 to chena (or what corresponds to it) in 

 itself is shown by the way in which he 

 frequently abandons a farm in the 

 United States or Canada, where the 

 soil is suffering from steady cropping 

 without proper manure, to take up a 

 fresh piece of land in Canada or further 

 west in the United States. 



Now it is something of this kind that 

 was for long considered an ideal for 

 eastern countries, and it is worth while 

 to examine into the position. The 

 Western farmer, like the Eastern native, 

 has most commonly very little capital, 

 and consequently, consciously or un- 

 consciously, he makes his living as 

 much as may be at the expense of the 

 natural capital of the place he is in, 

 sacrificing the forest (and with it prob- 

 ably part of the regularity and distri- 

 bution of the rainfall), reducing the 

 fertility of the soil by continuous crop- 

 ping (often of the same crop) without 

 rotation or without application of 

 manure, or without proper tillage, and 

 so on. 



The American or Canadian farmer, 

 under these circumstances, abandons his 

 land when it has become tco impover- 

 ished (as does the Malay who buys land, 

 when it becomes too weedy), and takes 

 up new. The Eastern villager, when 

 the country has become too populous 

 for chena, settles down at the lowest 

 possible stage of agriculture, his land 

 but little cultivated, if at all, and his 

 crops giving the minimum of yield, of 

 the poorest qualities. Only when pres- 

 sure of want forces him to it, does he 

 make any improvement, and not always 

 then. 



The American escapes exhausted 

 weedy soil by moving on, the chena 

 cultivator moves on, the poorer villager 

 remains where he is and does not culti- 

 vate except to some extent in his 

 paddy field. 



It all comes back to a question of 

 capital. If the man cannot or will not 

 expend any capital upon- his land to 

 make good what he is taking out of it, 

 then he must live at the expense of the 

 natural capital of the place, and when 

 he has used up the accumulated capital 

 which exists in the shape of forests, 

 good rainfall, virgin soil, and what not, 

 then he must live, as the poorer villager 

 lives — at the rate of interest provided 

 by the indestructible capital of the 

 place, and the amount of labour he puts 

 into it. 



In the older parts of North America, 

 as for instance in New England, a 

 number of farms have gone out of 

 cultivation, but these are now being 

 taken in hand by capitalists, who find 

 that by putting money into them they 

 can be made to pay. This process is 

 extendiug, and the old system of private 

 ownership and working of small farms 

 is giving place to a capitalist system 

 such as obtains in England, where the 

 land is often in one control over large 

 areas, but leased out in farms to those 

 who have enough capital to work upon 

 such a system. 



The preliminary opening ot the coun- 

 try is done by non-capitalist farmers, 

 or by chena cultivators, who grow what 

 they want and consume what they grow. 

 They go ahead of roads, education and 

 other " opening-up " influences, but are 

 followed by them. When roads arrive, 

 division of labour begins, and slowly the 

 more intelligent and energetic of the 

 people begin to develope trade and be- 

 come richer than their neighbours. 



As trade develops, larger capitalists 

 are evolved, and some of these begin at 

 last to put money into land and agri- 

 culture. As the capitalist — large or 

 small— develops at one end of the scale, 

 the poorer and less intelligent or 

 energetic folk develope at the other end 

 into a labouring proletariat, without 

 which capital is of little value. 



One may see this very clearly in 

 America and Canada. In the Far East 

 land is falling into the hands of capital- 

 ists, and a large labouring proletariat 

 is developing. As one goes West, on the 

 whole the agricultural community be- 

 comes more and more even in the matter 

 of wealth — none very rich, none very 

 poor, all on their own land, exploiting 

 the natural capital of the country. But 

 roads, education, and the like, are 

 rapidly breaking up this primitive 

 simplicity. 



The uniform class of people, not- 

 rich-not-poor, who occupy the fringe 

 of cultivation, whether there or here, 



